Thursday night, I took some much needed "me time" and treated myself to a Zen Green Tea at Starbucks before hanging out with some good friends (truth is, I enjoy spending some time by myself, regularly- I am secretly an introvert). The café being crowded, I decided to withdraw myself and kick back in the patio seating, with my tea, outside. However, this particular Starbucks is on the corner of University and University Village, a chill little spot for college students and -- on occasion -- local weirdos (Thursday night apparently being one of those occasions). Truthfully, this woman was nuttier than Starbucks' very own Banana Nut Bread.

She was particularly strange for several reasons. For one, she was remarkably skillful at holding a conversation with herself. Also, she seemed to be confused by basic pedestrian procedure --instead of crossing the street when the little neon pedestrian beckoned her, she seemed to enjoy waiting, as she would simply walk back and forth, waiting at little red hands, never to walk across. She repeated this many times, all the while, she ranted on about everything she hates, including college students, skinheads, politics, and several other random, yet unmentionable topics.

As I watched this spectacle occur, I couldn't help but wonder "how?" How in the world did this happen? How did she get like this? What decisions did she make in life that would have caused her to literally lose her mind? As I watched her pace back and forth, my heart began to grow heavy.

Now you're probably waiting for me to say something deep. You probably thought that I was going to make some sort of scriptural connection to this story. If I tried hard enough, I probably could, but I won't. It would be arrogant and insensitive of me to make this woman's misfortune into some sort of parable, as if it wasn't her reality. The truth is that many people have issues, some of which the average person cannot even fathom. People are lost, hurt, and broken -- it is our moral obligation as Christians to tend to their needs and to present to them the only solution to their suffering: Jesus Christ. "By this shall all [men] know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." - Jesus (John 13:35)